Kol' slaven - solution

[brouwer-crouwel]

Dear Seelangers,

on request of some list members I send the results of my query on
"Kol' slaven" to the list.

First, here is the full text, with thanks to Ingunn Lunde (Bergen,
Norway) and Will Starr (San Francisco):

Kol' slaven nash Gospod' v Sione
Ne mozhet iz''iasnit' iazyk.
Velik On v nebesakh na trone
V bylinkakh na zemli velik.
Vezde Gospod', vezde Ty slaven,
V noshchi, vo dni siian'em raven.

Tebia Tvoi Agnets zlatorunnyi
V sebe izobrazhaet nam.
Psaltir'iu my desiatistrunnoi
Tebe prinosim fimiam...
Primi ot nas blagodaren'e
Kak blagovonnoe kuren'e.

Ty solntsem smertnykh ozariaesh';
Ty liubish', Bozhe, nas, kak chad,
Ty nas trapezoi nasyshchaesh'
I zizhdesh' nam v Sione grad.
Ty greshnykh, Bozhe, poseshchaesh'
I plotiiu Svoei pitaesh'.

O, Bozhe, vo Tvoe selen'e
Da vnidut nashi golosa,
I vzydet nashe umilen'e
K Tebe kak utrennia rosa!
Tebe v serdtsakh altar' postavim, (or: ...my stavim)
Tebia, Gospod', poem i slavim.

As to its origins and function, I only today "dogadalsia" to take a
look in K.Kovalev's biography of Bortnianskii, and found out that the
song served as Russia's national anthem before and alongside with
Zhukovskii and L'vov's "Bozhe tsaria khrani". This last song (1833)
was officially accepted as national anthem, but "Kol' slaven" was so
well-known and popular that it ranked even with it. This explains why
it was recorded on a CD with military songs (the CD opens with "Bozhe
tsaria khrani"). Will Starr mentions that when he sung the song with
the San Francisco Men's Russian Chorus "Slavianka", the audience
stood.
"Kol' slaven" was composed in the first decennium of the 19th
century. Before that, Derzhavin and Kozlovskii's "Grom pobedy
razdavaisia", also called "Slav'sia sim, Ekaterina" was regarded as
the national anthem (but what about Paul's reign?).
The text has a quite conspicuous masonic flavour, as prof. Stephen
Baehr remarked in his reaction, and as is affirmed by Kovalev.
Interesting that a masonic song served as the Russian national
anthem!
For some more details, see K.Kovalev, "Bortnianskii", Moskva
1989 (Zhizn' zamechatel'nykh liudei, 701): 249-251. There is a
photograph of the first edition's cover page between pp. 240-241.

A question remains: how did this song turn up on the pages of Dutch
Protestant song books? I'll let know if I find out, but only on
request, not to the list.

Yours,
Sander Brouwer